Mining
Mining allows you to find and mine minerals, ores, and stones from particular resource nodes scattered throughout the world. It is one of the primary professions. Materials from mining and the items miners can create from them are vital reagents for many recipes within other professions. For other articles related to Mining, see the Mining category. Uses Mining is Profession used to gather and create reagents for Blacksmithing, Engineering and Jewelcrafting. As such you could simply collect resources and sell them to blacksmiths, engineers or jewelcrafters. However, most people combine mining with blacksmithing, engineering, or jewelcrafting so they can easily create items. Ore alone is useless for blacksmithing plans, engineering schematics, or jewelcrafting designs ( ), however ore can be used in Prospecting ( ), a sub-skill of Jewelcrafting, in which the crafter finds minerals within the ore. In a few cases, ore can also be used for other professions without processing, but this is the exception. Income from Mining Mining can be used to make a decent amount of side cash. The higher level people would rather buy the material already mined than go after it themselves. Also check the auction house and look at the cost of the ore in relation to 10 bars. Often the ore will be more. This is due to Jewelcrafters needing the ore for Prospecting, as well as high level people smelting the ore to raise their mining skill. Lastly look at the price of bronze. If you can get a stack of copper and tin for less than the price of a stack of bronze it might be worth it to smelt the two together to make the bronze. Remember 1 tin and 1 copper make 2 bronze. Another good area for income is selling Iron and Mithril. Thorium depends on the server, on a new server it sells for a lot, whereas on an old server everyone can mine it. Dark Iron is also another good item to mine, as it is highly valuable for its uses in crafting and gaining reputation with Thorium Brotherhood. Ore, without being smelted, rose in value once the expansion The Burning Crusade was implemented, as with the expansion came the new profession Jewelcrafting in which comes an additional ability called Prospecting. With Prospecting you can find minerals to make into rings, necklaces, trinkets, and rare head pieces, as well as cutting them for use in socketed items. Tools Required Tools You need to go and buy yourself a mining pick. They are usually sold by a trade merchant NPC or other merchants near the mining trainer, like a mining supplier. Find Minerals After learning mining you will have the "Find Minerals" button included with your other abilities. By activating this you will be able to see mineral veins (and deposits) on your mini-map, making mining far easier. Find Minerals can not be used at the same time as the herbalism ability Find Herbs. Smelting When you learn mining you will also gain the smelting ability. With this ability, ore can be smelted at a forge, becoming a metal bar to be used in crafting or sold at a vendor. Bags There are only two bag available for miners. The first is the that holds 20 mining items and is available through vendors. The second is the with 28 slots and requires and leatherworking to create. Skill Bonuses * Enchant Gloves - Advanced Mining adds +5 to mining skill. * adds +5 to mining skill. Actual Mining To mine a vein or deposit resource node, simply right click it. You will be able to loot ore or other items (usually stone and occasionally minerals) from the same vein 1 to 4 times. There are some exceptions to this, notably Thorium and Rich Adamantite nodes. Small Thorium Veins will only be able to be mined 1 or 2 times, Rich Thorium Veins 2 to 4 times. Adamantite Deposits can be mined the normal 1 to 4 times, but Rich Admantite Deposits can be mined 5 to 8 times. Different veins will require different mining skill levels to loot. For example a mithril vein requires a mining skill of 175. Increasing Mining Skill Gaining skill level in the mining profession can occur by either smelting ores or mining veins (only on the first loot). At the beginning, smelting copper is a very fast way to gain mining skill. However this peters out at about skill level 60-75. Even brand new smelting recipes will be green or gray in color, indicating you will not gain skill by smelting that ore. Gold and silver however are an exception, and can be smelted early on to gain skill. However these ores are quite rare. Other than by smelting gold and silver, mining veins is the best way to gain skill. However, even though you can mine one vein up to 4 times, you can only gain one skill point per vein, this doesn't stop another miner from gaining a skill point from that same vein. (In fact, you can gain a skill point without even removing the ore, allowing a large party of miners to skill up on the same nodes.) Quest ores may not be smelted, but are not "quest items" per se, and can be sold to other questors if they are willing to buy them. Mining Etiquette If someone is already looting a resource node, don't try and loot as well. Similarly don't use a speed enhancing ability to grab a node before someone else does. Ask if you can take a whack for the skill up, but otherwise leave the miner alone. In a party, share your nodes with other miners so you can split the skill ups and ores. If somebody is fighting a mob near a mining vein, either help kill the mob, or wait until the person is done, to see if he was planning to mine the vein you saw, or if they are of the same faction(Horde/Alliance)you can simply ask them. Proper etiquette may vary from server to server. Disregard etiquette for opposite faction miners (only applies on PVP servers). If someone is trying to steal a node from you you can simply not loot the ore out of your window and stand there, they will be unable to mine the node. most players will give up shortly, if they dont give up, mark yourself afk, they will usually leave after a few minutes. Mining Color Codes Any vein or deposit that can be mined will have a color code on the "Requires Mining" property when you move your pointer over it: Suggested Classes * Warrior - Plate smith * Paladin - Plate smith * Hunter - Mail smith or Engineer * Shaman - Mail smith * Druid - Stealth Mining for money * Rogue - Stealth Mining for money Summary of Skill Levels See ThottBot Table reference for more details. Apprentice :Requirement: No previous Mining skill level required. In each case, smelting refines an ore into a bar. (Exceptions: Bronze is made from copper and tin bars; Steel is made from iron bars and coal chunks.) Ores can be stacked 20 high; bars can be stacked 20 high. :Skill level range: 1 - 75 :Sub-skills or basic recipes: :* Smelt Copper (1) :* Smelt Tin (65) :* Smelt Bronze (65): Copper Bar and Tin Bar into 2 × Bronze Bar :* Smelt Silver (75) :* Smelt Elementium (1) :*: This skill is obtained in Blackwing Lair. Used only for a small number of quests for Epic or Legendary items. Unlike common beliefs, you only need 1 Mining skill in order to be able to use this skill, and do not even need to be a miner to learn it. Journeyman :Requirement: 50 Mining skill level required. :Skill level range: 76 - 150 :Sub-skills or basic recipes: :* Smelt Iron (125) Expert :Requirement: 125 Mining skill level required. :Skill level range: 151 - 225 :Sub-skills or basic recipes: :* Smelt Gold (155) :* Smelt Steel (165): Iron Bar and Coal into Steel Bar :* Smelt Mithril (175) Artisan :Requirement: 200 Mining skill level required. :Skill level range: 226 - 300 :Sub-skills or basic recipes: :* Smelt Truesilver (230) :* Smelt Thorium (250) :* Smelt Dark Iron (230) :*: This skill is taught by an NPC named Gloom'rel, who is situated in the 'Chamber of the Sevens' in the Blackrock Depths instance. He will ask you to bring him a tribute, consisting of two Star Ruby, ten Truesilver Bar, and twenty Gold Bar. Additionally, the skill can only be used at the Black Forge, also in the Blackrock Depths. Eight Dark Iron ores are smelted into one Dark Iron bar. Master :Requirements: 275 Mining skill level and Burning Crusade expansion installation required. :Skill level range: 300 - 375 :Sub-skills or basic recipes: :* Smelt Fel Iron (300) :* Smelt Adamantite (325) :* Smelt Eternium Bar (350) :* Smelt Felsteel Bar (350) :* Smelt Khorium Bar (375) :* Smelt Hardened Adamantite Bar (375) Mining Products By Skill Level See Mining Detail by Skill level. By Region See Mining Products available by region. Quest Items * Incendicite Ore * Lesser Bloodstone Ore * Indurium Ore * Rethban Ore Quest ore cannot be smelted. Mining Bugs Currently the most consistent mining bug is the double vein appearance. *The bug is the double vein appearance. Sometimes two veins will spawn in the same place, effectively doubling the amount of ore you can get. Furthermore, the sprite on your minimap acknowledges the location of both veins on the exact same spot. This is considered a beneficial bug. *Another bug is that the minimap might show that a vein exists, but the wall of the mine falls between you and where the minimap indicates the mine is. This is especially annoying if you are above ground, go underground to find it, and discover that you just waded through a lot of mobs in order to get to a vein that you cannot loot. (Though most of the time it's merely that the vein is on another floor of the mine. such as the Kobold mine south of Goldshire) *Another bug is that the minimap does Not show you where a vein might exist, while there is in fact one right in front of you. This mostly happens underground as well. a few common examples are in BRD, the Dark Iron nodes do not always show up on your minimap. External links * Mining Guide With Maps Category:Mining